Batch photo print scanner?
calculus
With some sort of photo-feeder?
I would like to digitise a large number of pre-digital photos - that task
may not need a large flatbed, but it does need a sheetfeeder which can
handle prints.
I have tried sheet feeders on a couple of flatbed scanners, but it didn't
like photographic prints :*(
Thanks for any advice.
Jeremy H
1Scan
Hi Jeremy,
I run a photo scanning business and about two years ago I started
looking into how we could scan large batches of photos. Up to then
we'd been using flatbed technology (Epson 4990) which while excellent
is incredibly slow when you're scanning shoeboxes full of photos.
Finding the type of device you describe, a hopper fed photo scanner,
was my mission too.
The answer to yur question is yes.
I ended up with the Kodak s1220, which as far as I can see is the only
product on the market that fits the bill. We've been together for
about a year and I'm more than happy with the scanner and the overall
support I've had from Kodak. The unit I think is now around £800, it
will handle colour, monochrome, scans front, back or both sides of an
image at 300, 600 or 1200 dpi. If you take this route you'll need a
chunky PC (Windows only, no Mac), you must keep the scanner window
scrupulously clean as well as the complete paper path. Kodak's
software is pretty good and you can get the hang of it in an hour or
two.
Don't be tempted by the physically identical and much cheaper i1220 as
this will not handle photos. Only the s model is photo friendly. If
you want to see what the scans look like there are some samples on our
website. Having done comparison tests on my own snapshots I don't
think 1200 dpi is worth the bother, if you aren't planning
enlargements 300 dpi is adequate and scanning speed incredibly quick.
I opted for 600 dpi as a standard and client feedback has been
excellent.
You will see many sheet fed scanners on the market, primarily aimed at
document scanning. Paper is much thinner and doesn't mind being folded
through a bendy paper path in a way that would ruin a photo print so
that rules out the majority of ADF scanners, never mind what the image
quality might be like. However I have recently seen a Fujitsu ScanSnap
advertised, primarily as a document scanner, but it seems to have a
straight paper path similar to the Kodak scanner. It's much cheaper
and both Windows and Mac compatible. I don't know what kind of quality
it delivers if you try to scan photos with it.
If your volume of photos justifies the investment I don't think you'll
be disappointed by the Kodak s1220.
Jeff Underwood
1Scan.co.uk
calculus
J
"1Scan" <jeff.un...@gmail.com> wrote in message
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Nigel Feltham
> Thanks for the info - something to go on!
>
If you still have the negatives you'll get better results scanning these
instead - there is a significant loss of quality in normal film photo
printing (35mm film can give 10 megapixel scans or higher with better
scanners, most 6x4 prints will barely give 2 to 3m pixels - a big
difference if you want to print them larger).
If you can handle using a SCSI card on your PC then used Canon, Nikon and
Minolta film scanners are available cheaply (often under �50) or Plustek
and Primefilm both do good quality scanners for around �150 (the often
advertised 5 megapixel 'scanners' that are really just a camera and
lightbox combined are best avoided). The only thing to look for is a real
optical resolution over 2,500dpi (and Dust removal technology if the film
isn't in perfect condition).
Bryan_Clark
As another business person who does 'photo scanning'
(http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/services/photo-scanning/), I was *-very
unhappy-* with this particular scanner, however, the issues I have with
this scanner are apparently problems with ALL "feeder" type scanners.
When this type of scanner scans, because the images pass over the glass
and the scanning optics stay stationary, any dust that is on the glass
is translated into a red, blue, or green line through your photos. This
wouldn't be so bad (since cleaning is pretty easy), but because you have
a constant motion of objects passing over a single object, static builds
quickly and this attracts more dust. Put this together with the fact
that most people's photos are dusty, and you have a recipe for
frustration and lost time.
Sometimes we could run a couple hundred pictures before seeing these
lines, other times it was less than one which brought the realistic
image-per-minute speed far far less than what is advertised (we'd think
it was clean, and something would show up on the first image and we'd
have to clean it over again). Because of the inconsistency of the
quality, the time involved in cleaning, and the frustration with it
consistently needing it to be cleaned and re-cleaned (no single issue or
piece of equipment in my company has been the source of more frustration
than this machine), sometimes after only one or two photos, we decided
as a company to not use this scanner for anything other than black and
white document scanning (where dust is not as big of an issue).
Countless hours were wasted trying to figure out if it could possible be
user error, or if there was a better way to use it in order to avoid
this issue (without success).
Instead, we run flatbed scanners that have "single pass multi-crop", a
feature which makes flatbed scanning go much faster. It does exactly
what it sounds like- you load multiple pictures on the tray, and the
optics make one pass and digitally crop the images afterward. Many
scanners claim they do multiple cropping, but they have to make a pass
for each image. Canon is the only company I know that does it in one,
which saves a significant amount of time if you have hundreds of photos
to scan.
While I might recommend the Kodak s1220 to someone who just needs
things for a digital record (lawyers, HR departments, business archives)
I would not recommend it to someone who would like good quality images.
My recommendation is to skip it, buy 2 workhorse computers and 2 'Canon
Canoscan 8800f'
(http://www.google.com/products?oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=canoscan%208800f&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wf)s
and operate them next to each other. Sure it may take a little more
time, but the quality is immensely better and you'll keep all your hair.
jmj1459
You can use the crop and straighten tool to scan and split out multiple
photos with photoshop. Try this guide:
'Scanning photos using Photoshop'
(http://www.ancestrychronicles.com/Articles/ViewArticle.aspx?Article=Scanning_Family_Photos_Using_Adobe_Photoshop_CS3)
:)